Fifty Years Ago: Thursday, 15th July 1976
(Dartmoor, age 14.9)
I was told to wake our lot up at 4.00 a.m. I was probably more able than anyone else to do it. My natural sense of time without a clock is remarkably accurate. Even now I can often wake within a few minutes of the intended time. I also enjoy being up at night. The darkness never bothered me.
The camp was quiet when I got up. There was mist, rain, skylarks somewhere beyond sight, the smell of damp canvas and smoke lingering from the previous night’s fire. Looking back, there was something faintly medieval about it all. We were sleeping rough on the moor, cooking over fires, carrying equipment on our backs and moving about before dawn. At moments it felt closer to stories my grandfather told about the trenches at Passchendaele than to modern Army training.
I woke everyone up, then went back to sleep until 5.00. Every extra minute seemed worth having.
At 5.00 I started cooking breakfast and was told to tell the gang on patrol where everything was and leave the grub for them. The food was the usual mixture of Army fare: bacon, sausages, tea and whatever else could be produced from ration packs and camp stores. Nobody was exactly cheerful at that hour.
We marched with haversacks and guns, with blanks. The rifles added weight and inconvenience more than danger. By then I was quite accustomed to carrying equipment around. Dartmoor itself did not feel threatening or even exciting. It was simply where we happened to be. Looking back, that acceptance strikes me as odd. Most fourteen-year-olds probably would have found the experience adventurous. To me it felt normal enough.
We sat on the moor until 6.15 a.m. Waiting seemed to occupy a great deal of military life. I cannot remember much urgency or anticipation. We simply sat there in the growing daylight while the landscape slowly emerged from the mist.
There was then a chance to lie in until 7.00, which nobody was likely to refuse.
After that we did two attacks. The attacks themselves felt rather lame and half-hearted. The supposed enemy never seemed particularly convincing. In truth, the den-raiding games we played between the ages of nine and thirteen in the woods at prep school had been more thrilling, more tactical and, in some ways, more dangerous. At least then there was genuine ingenuity involved.
Army Regulars were about, but largely seemed to hang around and set off firecrackers from time to time. The explosions were intended to add realism. Whether they succeeded is another matter.
Then it was back to Okehampton for 9.25 a.m.
We went to the NAAFI afterwards. By then I was tired enough to appreciate being indoors. I slept and watched television. The tea, chairs and shelter should probably have felt wonderful after a night and morning on the moor. What I remember more strongly is a feeling that I would happily have stayed out longer had I been managing on my own. Other people were usually the problem. Left to myself, I was perfectly content outdoors. It was the organisation, delays, complaints and inefficiencies that often spoiled things.
So the day ended not with military glory but with sleep, television and a growing sense that real adventure was often something boys created for themselves rather than something organised for them
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